


Welcome to the Family

by tuesday



Category: Ready or Not (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 02:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21092036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: Grace pulled a card.  It was chess.





	Welcome to the Family

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hearthouses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearthouses/gifts).

> Recip, I hope you enjoy this take on the prompt, "Grace doesn't draw the hide & seek card. She and Alex go on their honeymoon. This isn't necessarily a happy ending."

Grace pulled a card. It was chess. She had only the barest idea how to play chess. Alex held the hand not holding the card. Emilie clapped excitedly. Daniel let out a shaky breath. Mr. Le Domas nodded seriously. Mrs. Le Domas smiled beneficently. Charity looked bored. Fitch was distracted. Alex’s Aunt Helene seemed strangely disappointed.

“Who’s going to play with me?” Grace asked.

“First game goes to me, I should think,” Mr. Le Domas said. His eyes were almost warm. Grace had thought he’d hated her, but over the first game of chess, Mr. Le Domas explaining the rules and Alex giving her tips on strategy, Grace began to think he was willing to accept her. There had been some invisible barrier there before, setting them apart, but now it was gone. When the game was over, Grace losing in less than twenty moves despite Alex’s help, Mr. Le Domas patted her on the back of the hand, reset the board, and said, “Welcome to the family, dear. Who’s next?”

Before she and Alex went back to bed, Mrs. Le Domas pulled her into a hug and whispered, “Remember your promise.”

—

Grace and Alex went on their honeymoon. They balanced the frankly ridiculous amount of premarital sex they’d had with an equally ridiculous amount of happily married sex. There was a beach, but they barely left the hotel room.

It was good. Being married was good. Grace was happy.

—

They’d been married for a while when Grace said, “I want to do Thanksgiving with your family.”

“No, you don’t.” Alex snuggled into her side, his hand spread wide across her bare stomach. The covers were on the floor. They’d been shoved to the side of the bed and then over. They only had each other to keep warm. “Trust me. Thanksgiving with my parents would be terrible.”

“It might be boring for you, but I’ve never really gotten a normal family Thanksgiving.” Grace traced her fingers across the veins marbling the back of Alex’s hand. “I want that.”

“There is nothing normal about Thanksgiving with my family,” Alex said.

“Come on,” Grace wheedled. Alex was always sweet after sex, soft and giving. She was sure he’d give her this. “The wedding went okay. How bad could it be?”

Alex was quiet. He said, “Pretty bad, actually.”

Grace threaded her fingers through his, her palm against the back of his hand. “Okay.” There was so much he didn’t talk about. She wouldn’t push him. “Just the two of us, then.”

“I love you,” Alex said after she’d thought he’d fallen asleep. She was on the cusp of it herself. He pressed his lips to her hair. “So much.”

“Mm. Love you, too,” Grace said. Her dreams were pleasant and warm.

—

“Christmas,” Grace said when the weather had grown colder and Thanksgiving was a couple weeks in the rearview mirror. She was making breakfast, which for Grace meant putting frozen waffles in the toaster. “Why don’t we do Christmas with your mother?”

Alex didn’t talk about his family much, but he loved his mother. When he did share some tiny, treasured secret of childhood, it involved either his mother or his brother. Daniel visited sometimes, but never his mother. When Alex talked about her, it was with affection and unmistakable longing. Mrs. Le Domas—the elder Mrs. Le Domas, because Grace was Mrs. Le Domas, too, now—called Grace sometimes, but Alex never came to the phone.

“We don’t have to go for the week or even the full day. Just dinner. Lunch, maybe.” Grace blew on her fingers after fishing the too hot waffles out of the toaster and dropping them on the plate. “Daniel can run interference with everyone else.” She hadn’t asked Daniel yet, but she knew he’d be willing. “Just a couple hours.”

“We don’t celebrate Christmas,” Alex said.

“We don’t, but it won’t kill us to pretend for a day,” Grace said.

“No.” Alex’s smile was lopsided. “My family. We don’t celebrate Christmas.”

“Oh.” Grace hummed, pulling out syrup. Alex was a bit high maintenance. It was A-grade amber maple syrup from Vermont. “What do you celebrate?”

“Me, personally? Nothing anymore.” Alex stole the syrup from her hands. He stole a kiss from her mouth, though she’d have given it gladly. “I’d like to keep it that way.”

—

It was the new year. A time for new beginnings.

Time for other new things, too.

“Say it again,” Alex demanded, putting down the flute of champagne he’d offered her. His movement was too fast. Some slopped over the side onto their coffee table.

Grace smiled. “I can’t have any, because I think I’m pregnant.”

Alex whooped. He lifted her. He twirled her in a circle.

Grace laughed and laughed.

She was happy. She was so damn happy.

—

“—said you’d be careful!” The tail end of Daniel’s words were audible through the door.

Grace cracked it open slowly. She was home early. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear this.

“I was careful—we were careful,” Alex said. “But she got the flu, and the antibiotics messed with her birth control, and—it just happened. This just happened. I’m happy. Can’t you be happy for me?”

Daniel sighed. “I am happy for you. But you said you wanted out. You know they’ll never let you go now.”

“They weren’t exactly rushing to let me go before, either.” Alex ran a hand through his hair.

“You need to tell her.” Daniel patted Alex’s shoulder. “If you don’t—”

“You will?” Alex asked.

“_Mom_ will,” Daniel said.

“I will. I was going to. I just—” Alex looked away. He caught Grace’s form as she slipped in the door and shut it behind her.

“Tell me what?” Grace asked.

Daniel also spotted her now, wincing at whatever he saw on her face. He cleared his throat. “I’ll let you two talk.” On the way out, he gave her a quick side-hug and said, “Congrats on the baby.”

It was awkward. It sounded like someone congratulating another person on their impending death sentence. He left.

“Tell me what?” Grace repeated.

Alex blew out a deep breath. He led her to the couch and convinced her to sit. He said, “Grace, I think it’s time I told you about my family.”

—

Grace was happy. She was. She had a family: Alex’s, most of whom she didn’t see, but knew were interested in seeing her, and Alex himself. Her world was expanding. She had everything she’d ever wanted.

Grace was happy—

—until she wasn’t.

—

“I’m so happy,” Mrs. Le Domas said as she enfolded Grace in her arms. “Daniel was convinced you were never going to visit.” She smelled of cigarette smoke and roses. Behind her, Mr. Le Domas practically radiated satisfaction. “But I knew you’d bring Alex back to us.”

Grace stepped back a single step. Alex stood at her back, keeping her from withdrawing further. Reaching back, she took his hand. She took a deep breath. She made herself smile.

Hand in hand, they walked into the house she’d last seen on her wedding day.


End file.
